


Scutum

by GraeWrites



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Feelings of guilt, Found Family, Gen, Injury, Like A Lot A Lot, Sci-Fi AU, Violence, Whump, but its a sci-fi kind of way, but not only Virgil, elliot is briefly a jerk but they're young and just had a traumatic event, happy ending I promise, misplaced blame, mostly virgil, oh and they curse a lot, passing mention of drunkenness, poison/being poisoned, some background mentions of sci-fi colonization stuff, some elements of self-sacrifice, talk of death and dying, they're trying, title of fic is named after a constellation that is "shield" in latin, weapon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23385244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraeWrites/pseuds/GraeWrites
Summary: Roman’s arm wraps around his torso and he tosses a shaky smile to Logan. “I can’t believe I’m really gonna die having never beaten you at chess.”Sci-Fi AU. Roman sees the weapon first. The rest is just instinct.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Morality | Patton, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Logic | Logan Sanders
Comments: 32
Kudos: 72





	Scutum

**Author's Note:**

> Have some sci-fi escapist found family hurt/comfort. This took forever, wow. Several weeks and three drafts later and here we are. Glad it’s done! My huge, undying thanks to @creativenostalgiastuff on tumblr for all of her help as my beta for this fic and answering my many, many questions and dealing with my general self-doubt. First time writing sci-fi. Would love to know what you think! <3

Captain Logan Sanders scrubs a hand underneath his glasses and leans his head back against the glass of the circular window. The metal of the spaceship—affectionately coined _Foster_ by the ship’s medic, Patton Hart—creaks with a dull groan. The captain usually uses the window in the ship’s armory when he needs a moment alone, as its size allows Logan to comfortably lean up against the glass and look out into the “void of space”, as their pilot—Virgil Shea—tended to describe it.

Their relations officer and navigation coordinator, Roman Prince, usually hated looking too long at it. Logan had the feeling it made him feel lonely, or homesick. Maybe both.

Logan doesn’t mind it, though he also wouldn’t have necessarily called it a “void”. Billions of stars and the occasional swirl of color meant a certainty of life that existed out there. The universe is always teeming with it, and Logan finds a greater comfort from this distanced reminder than the crowded, bustling bazaars that Roman seemed to thrive in.

Logan hears the door swish open, his head swiveling over towards the sound. The light that floods into the room illuminates the dusty iron walls and the shelves of weapons—phasers and guns lined up beside one another, boxes of ammo on the shelf above—and Logan sees a familiar figure silhouetted against the light.

“Hey, Captain,” Kai Dwyer greets, unfazed by the sight of Logan sitting in the window.

“Kai,” he replies, pushing himself up to his feet off the window ledge. He grimaces slightly as he stretches his back, having forgotten how stiff the metal makes him when he sits too long.

Kai grabs a clipboard off the wall adjacent to the door. “Thought I’d do a quick inventory check before we dock.”

Logan frowns. “Are we close?”

“Virgil said we were still a few hours out. But I wanna be thorough. Make sure I know everything we need before get on planet.”

Logan inclines his head, rolling his shoulders to shake off the lingering stiffness before he crosses towards the door. “Acceptable. Carry on.”

Kai gives a small mock-salute. “Roger that, Cap’n.” The door slides shut behind Logan.

Foster is an old ship. Even to someone unfamiliar with the schematic, it’s evident in the grated flooring, the worn metal walls and beams that hold it together, the way the pressurizer hummed on occasion. Newer models tended to be sleeker, more streamlined, and generally brighter than the dark iron walls that adorned Foster’s interior.

Logan would never admit it—even to his own crew—but he trusted Foster more than he trusted other ships. Logically, he knew it was ridiculous. In the vast majority of cases, Logan believed that newer generally meant improved. But when it came to Foster, Logan had never even considered trading it in for a newer model. Instead, if something needed fixing on the ship, then Logan would consult Virgil and their engineer, Remy, to give Foster the needed updates. The ship was as much a part of the crew as any of the rest of them and it had gotten them through it’s fair share of close calls. As far as Logan was concerned, Foster had earned the loyalty of the crew.

But of course… that an inanimate object could _earn loyalty_ didn’t make logical sense. So Logan kept that particular sentiment to himself.

Logan hears a familiar sound of the door swishing open down the short pathway and sees Roman duck out of his room. The relations officer is wearing his white and red armor suit, and Logan arcs an eyebrow when the officer meets his gaze.

“Hey, Specs.” Roman gives a small salute that echoes Kai’s a moment ago. Logan rolls his eyes.

“Greetings. Might I inquire as to why you’re wearing armor? My understanding is that we’re about to dock for a benign venture.” Logan pauses. “Unless you know something I don’t?”

“What? Oh.” Roman glances down at himself as if he’d forgotten what he was wearing. “Sorry to disappoint, Logan. Patton wanted to check the monitors in the suit, so I’m supposed to wear it around for a little bit. Make sure the readings are all right.” He bounces on the balls of his feet. “I’ve gotta say, Kai’s upgrades to the armor are pretty cool. Check this out.”

Roman stretches an arm out to his side, and Logan has barely registered that his palm has started to glow when something bright shoots out from it and Logan throws an arm up to protect his face.

A moment later, Logan lowers his arm to see a glowing hole through one wall of the ship. Through that hole, Logan sees the med bay and Patton staring out at them with wide, startled eyes. Picani is standing on the other side of the med bay, a ukulele in his hand, having just startled out of the chair he was sitting in. Logan clenches his jaw, turning a frustrated gaze at Roman before he hears the metallic clang of footsteps climbing up the ladder and the unmistakable voice of the ship’s primary engineer.

“Girl, you _better not_ have busted a hole in my ship again!”

At the end of the hall, Remy García’s head pokes up with a glowering look as he pulls himself up onto the top layer of scaffolding. His dark goggles are pushed back into his hair, and he’s got streaks of grease smudged across his forehead and along his cheek.

“ _Your_ ship?” Logan asks, crossing his arms over his chest. His comment goes ignored as Remy stalks down the pathway and Roman starts stammering out either an apology or an excuse.

“You’re lucky you didn’t punch a hole straight through the outer shell or we’d all be dead.”

The intercom announces its presence with a familiar click and faint static before Virgil’s voice chimes through, echoing slightly off the metal walls. “ _Yeah, Remy and I might’ve fixed the damage from last week but we’d rather not test it while we’re floating through the great abyss of space.”_

Roman’s holding his hands up in surrender. “It was an accident!” He glances through the hole in the wall. “Sorry, Patton. Sorry, doc!”

Patton waves. “It’s okay!” he calls from inside the med bay.

Picani chuckles and waves as well. “Nobody’s hurt!”

Remy sighs and looks to Logan. “That won’t be the cheapest fix, Cap, and we maxed on the budget for ship fixes last time we docked. That pirate gang did a number on Foster.”

Logan pinches the bridge of his nose. “Roman, it’s coming out of your pay.”

Roman opens his mouth as if to argue, then closes it before nodding. “No, yeah. That’s fair.”

Remy gives Roman one more glare before turning and heading back towards the ladder that descends to the lower deck. Logan is about to head to the bridge when he hears Roman say, “I mean… you gotta admit that was pretty cool.”

“I will admit no such thing,” Logan replies dryly as he heads in the opposite direction of Remy. “At _some_ point, I’ll have peace and quiet on my ship again.”

“I wouldn’t be sure of that!” Roman calls after him brightly.

…

“We’re probably about 3 hours out from docking, Captain.”

Elliot—Virgil’s co-pilot—makes the announcement as the door to the ship’s bridge swishes open. The corner of Logan’s mouth quirks slightly, always impressed by Elliot’s ability to know who was coming through the door without looking. Anytime Logan asked them about it, they merely shrugged.

Foster’s bridge is relatively small. Green, red, and blue dots of lights cover both walls above a row of seats with harnesses for emergency cases. Each dot of light was information about how Foster was functioning, and Logan scans both walls quickly. Everything seemed to be operating efficiently.

“Understood,” Logan replies to Elliot.

A few feet past the emergency seats along the walls are the two pilot chairs, occupied by Virgil and Elliot. Virgil flips a small metal switch, then glances over his shoulder at Logan. Virgil had been the last person to join his team when Logan was first recruiting—Picani, Kai, and Elliot didn’t join until a few months ago. Logan had been uncertain when someone whose call sign was “Anxiety” responded to his flyer in search of a pilot. But word on the street had been that Virgil was the best of the best, and Logan was running low on potential candidates that measured up to his expectations.

Virgil had more than proved the rumors. Logan owed his life to him and his piloting skills more times than he cared to admit. The entire crew did.

“So why exactly are we docking in Vannaheim?” Virgil asks. “Not that I’m not, like, totally jazzed to be going to a planet that’s 99% desert.”

Logan crosses the short distance to stand between the two pilots chairs. “Vannaheim’s dune pattern is being impacted by gravity shifts that they can’t explain. We’re there to take some observations and perhaps help their scientists develop a solution.”

Elliot glances at Virgil, then snorts at the look on his face. “You’re just mad because you can’t wear your hoodie.”

Virgil points a finger at them. “I _can_ , and I _will_.”

“You will do no such thing,” Logan interjects with a pointed look. “I will not have one of my best pilots suffer heat stroke.”

“It’s my aesthetic and I like to suffer.”

Logan shakes his head, looking out above the ship’s controls to the window that spanned in front of the pilot seats. It was a similar view to the one Logan had been enjoying a moment ago in the armory window, with the addition of Vannaheim in the distance—a small, red and orange planet that was approximately half the size of Earth. Hot and dry, but slightly higher oxygen levels than were present in Earth’s atmosphere.

Logan had been to Vannaheim six years ago when an old friend of his, Corbin Wright, had requested his help with developing vegetation alternatives given the arid biosphere of the planet. He’d been concerned at the potential ecological ramifications should they introduce flora and fauna that were not native to the planet. Instead, he and Corbin and a few other scientists spent a few weeks researching the native vegetation and fauna and determining what options were most compatible with human nutritional needs.

The effort had been met with some resistance from a minority of the colonists on the planet. They formed something of a resistance group—called themselves the ‘Retribution’, which Logan still thinks is a bit excessive—that started with some minor disagreement at community meetings, but quickly devolved into accusations that their ‘way of life’ was ‘under attack’. Which was ridiculous. Logan left as things continued to escalate, knowing that his presence on the planet was likely to only heighten the tensions. It was Logan’s original idea, after all.

When Corbin reached out about the gravitational shifts, he’d said tensions had remained after Logan left—even reaching moments when Corbin worried it would turn violent—but that things seemed to have mostly settled down in the recent weeks. Logan had asked if Corbin was sure that Logan returning wouldn’t have an adverse effect on the peace in the colony.

 _One way to find out_ , Corbin had replied dryly. Logan didn’t find it particularly comforting.

…

Two and a half hours later, Logan is passing by the med bay when the click through the ship’s intercom perks his ears.

“ _Heads up. We’re T-minus 27 minutes until we’ll be pulling into dock_.” Elliot’s voice is distorted slightly by the static hum.

It clicks off in the same moment that the doors to the med bay swish open. Patton steps out, looking down at a chart that’s projected flatly from the gauntlet on his wrist. He glances up and smiles.

“Heya, Cap.”

Logan arcs an eyebrow. “Greetings. Everything satisfactory?” He inclines his head to the chart Patton had been looking at.

“What, this?” Patton glances back down. “Yeah. Just going over the charts from the new suit readouts. I was gonna have you try yours on before we docked, but Roman’s little… surprise earlier did some damage to the chest plate as I was downloading the software.” Patton laughs. “Kai said he can fix it, but not before we dock. I _did_ manage to salvage your helmet, though. Ya have a minute?”

Logan follows Patton through the entryway into the med bay. Perhaps “med bay” was a bit of a gracious term for it. The room was relatively small, with two gatch beds fixed to one wall, and a variety of medical equipment and read-outs that Logan only vaguely understood how to use. The room was well-equipped for as small as it was, but Patton was also the only medical doctor on the ship.

On the left gatch bed, Logan sees black armor with blue accents—and the half-melted chestplate. It resembles, in style, to the white and red armor Roman had been wearing earlier.

“I updated the heartrate monitor display, plus the one for oxygen intake,” Patton is saying behind Logan as he minimizes the chart he’d been looking at and moves to a monitor on the far wall. “I also added a body temperature gauge and a toxin sensor since you can never be too careful, y’know?”

Logan nods, lifting the new helmet and inspecting it. The exterior of the helmet looks the same as before Logan had turned it over to be updated. A dark visor shields the face, the rest of it black with dark blue accents. It matches the damaged suit that sits in pieces on the gatch bed.

“Ya like it?” Patton asks. Logan looks over his shoulder at the doctor, who had stopped what he was doing on the monitor to look expectantly at the ship captain.

Logan glances back. “It appears to be the same helmet.”

Patton grins. “Looks that way. It’s cooler now, though. I also added in some ecological monitors. Simple stuff, at least for now. Atmosphere make up, surface temperature. Working on some other stuff, but that seems like enough for a prototype, don’tcha think?”

“I suppose it does make sense to limit variable additions when testing new technology.”

“Try the helmet on for me? Oh, and you should probably take your glasses off. Kai made sure the display will adjust for your vision.”

Logan obligingly slips the dark armor helmet over his head. He reaches up to his temple on the outside of the helmet and presses in. There’s a high-pitched _blip_ and Logan’s vision goes from dark to a bright, staticky blue. Logan instinctively shuts his eyes against the blinding onslaught.

“Yikes!” Patton yelps, and Logan senses him suddenly standing beside him. A slight pressure on his left temple, a quiet _blip_ , and Logan’s vision goes back to black. “I’m sorry, Logan. Not sure why that happened. I’ll have Kai take a look.”

Logan slips the helmet back off. “Not to worry, Patton. I’m confident in Kai’s engineering capabilities.”

Patton gingerly takes the helmet from Logan’s arms and sets it back on the gatch bed in front of them. “Yeah, but still. We were so close to all of you getting to try the new suits!”

Logan rakes his fingers through his hair to pull it back under control from its disheveled state. It was always a mess when he took his helmet off. He slips his glasses back onto his face. “Nevertheless. Roman and Elliot’s test runs on Vannaheim should still be adequate in assessing whether the new software you’ve developed will serve its functional purpose adequately.”

Patton gives Logan’s helmet a sad pat. “Yeah, you’re right. Well, thanks for giving it a shot, Cap! Good luck down there.”

“Your luck is unneeded, but appreciated. Thank you, Patton.”

…

The blast of arid heat stings Logan’s eyes slightly as Virgil lowers the ship’s docking track. Logan smiles politely at Corbin—slightly aged from the last time he saw him, but unmistakable regardless—and the two other individuals that stand with him. Roman and Elliot linger closely behind him as Logan descends the ramp and shakes Corbin’s hand.

“It’s good to see you, Logan,” Corbin greets with a faint smile. “Allow me to introduce you. This is my partner, Sloane. And this is Valerie.”

Logan shakes both of their hands, thinking idly that Sloane’s evident excitable energy rivaled that of Patton’s. Valerie has her dark hair pulled back into a high ponytail, which isn’t necessarily a surprise given the heat. The orange and yellow sands stretch into rolling dunes in the distance, unheeded by the small colony network they’d docked in. A bright blue sky stretches above them, and Logan sees Elliot slip on a pair of sunglasses out of the corner of his eye. Roman squints and brings up a hand to shield his own vision.

“Rainwall’s gotten bigger,” Logan remarks as Corbin leads them from the dock and further into the colony.

The last time Logan had been here, it had barely been a few temporary settlement structures—really just glorified tents, in Logan’s humble opinion--cohesive enough to call a colony network but only barely. The structures look more permanent now, and there are certainly more of them. Pathways between them are not paved but are certainly worn enough with foot and vehicle traffic, and Logan is pleased to see that they put his prior suggestion of solar panels to use. The roofs of nearly every building—most of them white and domed structures of varying sizes—are covered with them.

There’s a gust of wind, kicking up the sand and dust at their feet. Logan turns his face into his shoulder to keep from inhaling. Roman coughs behind him. “Oh _great_ ,” he says with an air of drama that makes Logan roll his eyes. “This planet is going to ruin my hair.”

“You get used to it,” Valerie says.

“I definitely do not want to get used to it.”

The corner of Logan’s mouth quirks. “We could return to Dal’tera, Roman.”

“I thought we agreed to never speak of Dal’tera again.”

“You and _Virgil_ agreed to never speak of what happened on Dal’tera again. _I_ made no such promise.”

Although Logan doesn’t turn around, he can feel the way Elliot’s gaze flickers between Roman’s face and the back of his head. “What happened on Dal’tera?”

“It was four years ago—”

“Which is why we are leaving it _in the past!_ ” Roman cuts in insistently. “Unbelievable. The lack of _trust_. First, Kai disables the cool blaster-thingy on my suit, now my own captain is _betraying_ my _trust_.”

The accusation is empty and with a certain familiar affection underlying the dramatics, but Logan holds his hands up in mock surrender regardless. “To Kai’s credit, you _did_ damage the ship less than half an hour after having the technology made available to you,” he says, and Roman makes an affronted noise behind him.

“It was an accidental—”

Elliot interrupts him, sounding amused. “Did you just call it a _blaster-thingy_? Really?”

Logan glances over his shoulder in time to see Roman look down at his armored hand. “I don’t know the name for it.”

“It should be named something cool.”

“Yes, I agree. Perhaps we should come up with some options to run by Kai when we return.”

As they pass one of the vegetation fields, a pair of colonists wave at them from a distance. Logan sees Sloane wave enthusiastically in return out of the corner of his eye. Corbin lifts a hand in a more subdued greeting. A pair of children cut out between the buildings in front of them and barely dodge Logan and Corbin at the front of the group, shrieking with laughter. Behind him, Elliot and Roman chat about potential names for the new technology that Kai had inputted into the suit.

It’s a familiar thrum of background noise as they make their way through the settlement. The excitable chatter and increasingly ridiculous suggestions for naming technology makes Logan vaguely grateful that Kai tended to name his own tech rather than leave it to those two. Regardless, Logan is content to let them chatter away. Especially if it kept their attention occupied as they navigate through Rainwall.

As much as the colony had grown since Logan had last seen it, it doesn’t take them too long to reach the far end of the small town. They’re led to one of the white domed structures at the far end of the network of buildings and worn pathways. Corbin inputs a four-digit code into the keypad beside the door, and Logan hears a lock click before the door swishes open.

…

Logan feels the beanbag hit the back of his head for the fourth time and doesn’t even bother to turn around.

“Sorry, Captain!” Roman says, also for the fourth time.

Logan, Corbin, and Valerie had been pouring over data spreadsheets, charts, graphs, and notes regarding the anomaly in Vannaheim’s dune pattern for the past three hours. Roman and Elliot both had tried to assist for the first hour and a half, but while they were extremely bright and intelligent people in Logan’s opinion, neither were particularly practiced or well-versed in theoretical physics or planetology. Elliot’s understanding of piloting had been helpful briefly in identifying some smaller anomalies in the gravitational shifts in the planet’s atmosphere, but that was about the extent that their expertise could help.

The pod—as Sloane had been calling the one-room building they were in—was small and simple on the inside, but certainly functional. The couch and table towards the front of the pod had been pushed against the wall to make room for the game that Roman and Sloane had started with a beanbag that Sloane happened to have handy. Towards the back were several computers, and a few chairs. Corbin sits in one, scanning over the contents of the most recent read-out, and Valerie sits in the other. Logan stands and paces in the space between them and the game of beanbag. There were a few unpacked crates blocking part of the pathway, having previously housed brand-new computer parts.

Roman sheepishly jogs the short distance between himself and the beanbag at Logan’s feet, snatching it up. Logan opens his mouth to say something when Elliot cuts him off, sitting up a bit from where they’d been lounged against the couch.

“Did you guys hear that?”

Logan frowns, but it’s Valerie who speaks up, looking up from the tablet in her hands. “Hear what?”

But then they _do_ hear it. It’s distant, but rapidly getting closer. Shouting. Someone screams. And—

“Was that phaser discharge?” Sloane asks, his face draining of color. Elliot scrambles to their feet, crossing towards Logan and further away from the door.

“Corbin, take Sloane and get out of here,” Logan says immediately. “Valerie, you too. Get somewhere safe.”

The shout is right outside the door. Corbin grabs for Sloane and yanks him back behind him as the door swishes open, fumbling to pull the phaser out of the holster at his belt.

Logan barely has time to register that the strangled cry from Roman is his name before he feels a weight slam into him, sending him crashing to the floor just as phasers go off. Logan doesn’t know who fired first, his ears ringing slightly and Roman, a heavy weight, on top of him.

“I knew he’d come back!” a new voice—grating and sharp and a little hysterical—shrieks. “I knew fucking Logan Sanders couldn’t keep his distance! You’ve ruined our way of life one too many times you fucking piece of—” Corbin fires his phaser, a streak of green light slamming into the figure’s chest. Even through the chaos, Logan can see the switch set to stun.

“Roman,” Logan grunts as he shoves his relations officer off of him, “what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Roman rolls off him with a tight grimace, an arm wrapped around himself. He doesn’t answer and he doesn’t sit up, and it’s only then that Logan sees the skin of Roman’s waist—a sickly green and black—exposed between his fingers and broken armor.

Logan’s mind kicks into overdrive, the shouting between Corbin, Valerie, Elliot and the intruders overlapping with exchanges of phaser fire fading into background noise.

Logan goes to reach for his comm at his belt before he realizes that it’s been shattered into pieces. Parts of it are melted, apparently having taken some phaser damage. Unusable. Logan changes tactics immediately, pulling the identical equipment piece off Roman’s shoulder and clicks in.

“Foster Crew,” Logan says, clipped and urgent. “Come in. We have a Code Black. Repeat: Code Black. We need immediate assistance.”

“ _Fucking_ shit _,”_ is Virgil’s instant response, muffled from static. “ _What’s your location?”_

Logan looks to Elliot on his left, who is staring at Roman with wide eyes having heard the call go through the comms. “Elliot,” Logan says. “Send our location.”

They blink quickly and nod, pressing a button on the gauntlet on their armor before firing another round of their phaser. It cracks against the wall. Elliot ducks back behind the create as the corner of it splinters into shards with a ricocheting _crack_.

Logan reaches for the wound on Roman’s waist, but Roman won’t move his hands. He’s pale, already with a thin sheen of sweat, and when his eyes flutter open, Logan doesn’t miss the glassy look in them, nor the way that they don’t seem to focus.

“Roman. Hey.” Logan taps his face, then pulls Roman’s hands away. “Look here.”

“Cap?” Roman’s voice is distant. Hazy. Confused.

When Logan yanks Roman’s hands away so that he can better assess damage, Roman makes a noise in the back of his throat that doesn’t sound fully human.

Logan doesn’t respond. The wound isn’t just phaser damage, from the little Logan can see. Phasers didn’t generally turn skin into that green-black mottled mess. There appears to be several tiny puncture wounds. _Toxin_ , Logan thinks, and reaches for Roman’s comm again. He helps Roman sit up and lean against the crate behind him.

“Patton. Come in, Patton.”

Corbin is shouting something from where he’s taken cover against the wall on the opposite side to Logan’s left. He fires twice more.

“ _Roman’s vitals are all over the place,”_ Patton answers without having to ask what Logan needed to know. _“Toxin levels are elevated and climbing. What’s happening down there?”_

“Virgil, what’s your ETA?” Logan says instead of answering. He’s on autopilot, his mind racing. He can barely keep up with his own thoughts. Flashes of green phaser fire streak overhead and leave scorch marks on the white walls of the pod.

“ _Two minutes but it looks like you guys are pinned down. We’ll do what we can. Might be two and a half before you guys can get out.”_

“Is anyone else hurt?” Logan asks to the open air.

“Not yet,” Corbin replies, ducking as another round of phaser fire hits overhead. “They’re Retribution though. No mistaking that.” He aims again, fires a few more rounds. Logan hears something heavy slump to the ground. Roman grunts and leans his head back against the crate he’s propped up against. His breathing is fast and shallow.

Despite himself, Roman gives Logan a pained smile. “I got pretty good reflexes, huh?”

“This situation hardly classifies as a testament to your reflex speed.”

“Virgil always said….” Roman grimaces. Shudders. Tries again. “Virge always said he was fastest but I could give ‘im a…. a run for his money.”

Logan frowns. “Your speech is slurring.”

“Sorry.”

Roman starts saying something about the last time he was drunk—Logan was there; they’d been celebrating Virgil’s birthday—but Logan has mostly tuned him out. His mind is still spinning. Toxin-equipped phasers were new technology to Logan. He’d _heard_ there was potential for it, but he hadn’t looked much into the tech or its development. For it to be possible, then they’d need access to existing natural toxins. Synthetic ones wouldn’t pair as well with the phaser tech and would risk overloading or overheating the weapons. What natural toxins existed on Vannaheim?

More than one, from Logan’s memory. It had been a subsection of his research when looking into native vegetation options from the planet six years ago.

“ _Logan? Come in. Logan?”_ Patton’s voice over the comms not only interrupts Logan’s sprinting thoughts, but also causes Roman to cut off his slurred, barely coherent speech.

Logan grabs the device. “Here.”

“ _Roman’s getting worse. I think he’s panicking, ‘cuz his heartrate is through the roof, but that could also be the toxin. Do you know what it was?”_

“I don’t. If I were to guess, based on the damage and situational factors, I’d probably assume it was a hemotoxin or necrotoxin but without more information or the ability to run tests, I cannot be certain.”

Virgil’s voice cuts into the conversation. “ _T-minus one minute.”_ Even distorted from the static, Virgil’s voice sounds strained in its own right. “ _Fuck, I’m going as fast as I can, Logan. Tell Princey he’s not allowed to die before I have the chance to kill him myself for being an idiot.”_

Roman scoffs, but it’s weak and pained and sounds a lot more like a cough. “An _idiot_?” he demands incredulously.

“Message received,” Logan says dryly before setting the comm down. “Roman, take a deep breath.”

Roman sucks in a breath—shaking and thin—and winces. “Ow. Shit.” Roman’s arm wraps around his torso and he tosses a shaky smile to Logan. “I can’t believe I’m really gonna die having never beaten you at chess.”

It’s Elliot that answers him first, their voice tight and strangled and desperate. “You’re _not_ going to die.”

“You’re not going to beat me at chess,” Logan adds. He can still hear shouting outside the pod. Roman gives a breathy laugh before his eyes unfocus again, blinking owlishly. Logan sets a firm, grounding hand on his shoulder. “Focus. Roman, tell me five things you can see.”

“Tell me five things _you_ can see.” Roman blinks hard, then looks around uncomprehendingly. “Where… am I?”

“Vannaheim,” Logan replies smoothly despite the way his chest clenches. He cannot panic. Logan takes a breath.

Roman makes a face. “I hate Vannaheim.”

“Because the wind messes up your hair. Yes, you’ve told me.”

The door swishes open and Logan grabs Roman’s phaser from its holster and fires a shot. It cracks against the wall of the pod slightly to the left of the intruder. Logan had left his phaser on the ship. An oversight on his part. _Deal with it later,_ Logan tells himself firmly.

“A prince has got to slay,” Roman says, his words slurred. He takes a breath that seems to tangle in his lungs, and wheezes out a cough.

“You’re wearing a uniformed suit of armor,” Logan finds himself saying. _Wasn’t enough to protect him_ , something hisses in Logan’s mind. Logan shakes his head quickly. He’d deal with that thought later. “If you’re that worried about your appearance, wear the helmet.”

Logan estimates that it’s been about twenty seconds since his last communication with Virgil and Patton. They hear the door swish open. Valerie fires. There’s a startled cry and the door closes.

“I like the—” Roman cuts himself off with a clench to his teeth, his body visibly shuddering. He curls around himself, his head nearly pitching straight into Logan’s chest. The captain catches Roman’s shoulders, holding him steady until the trembling is back to a more manageable level a second later. He guides Roman to sit back again.

Roman’s head leans back to thump gently against the crate, his brow pinched. “Logan… you’re shaking.”

“Falsehood,” Logan replies distractedly, trying to tune in to the conversation Corbin and Valerie are having on the opposite side of the small pod given the lull in combatants. They can still hear the fight raging outside. Someone screams. Pounding footsteps.

Sloane is typing frantically into one of the computers. A second later, there’s a click by the door. “Doors are locked. Should at least slow them down,” he says.

Corbin glances back at Logan, his chest heaving in an attempt to catch his breath. His jaw sets when his eyes flicker to Roman slumped against the crate.

“You’ve gotta get out of here,” he says. “Valerie and I will cover you. As soon as Anxiety gets here, make a break for it. They’re not here for a war. They’re here for you.”

Logan opens his mouth to reply but Roman’s strained, slurred speech interrupts him. “Logan… give m’ th’ phaser.”

“Why?”

Roman’s brow furrows together like he thinks the answer should be obvious. “Figured I’d take a few of ‘em down with me while… while you two…” He grimaces again, but Logan gets the picture.

“No.”

Roman levels a look that would be a glare if his eyes would stay focused on Logan. “Be logical, Captain.”

Logan doesn’t deign the challenge with a response. He just stares at Roman—the sheen of sweat, the shallow and rapid breath, the way Roman can’t seem to support the weight of his own head—and then looks back at Corbin. “If we flee and they’re here for me, it’s not impossible that they’ll give chase.”

“We’ll ground as many as we can,” Valerie says, quickly adjusting some calibration on the phaser in her hand.

“Captain,” Roman insists, but Logan ignores him.

“Virgil will just have to shake the rest,” Logan says grimly.

“ _T-minus five seconds. Incoming.”_ Virgil’s cracked, staticky voice breaks through the comms on Elliot’s and Roman’s shoulder.

“Speak of the devil.”

“Let’s move,” Logan says, crossing back to Roman.

He figures that offering a hand to help Roman stand up wouldn’t be enough support, given that Roman seemed barely capable of holding up his own head. A fireman’s carry? Seemed excessive, at least for the time being. Perhaps Logan would default to that should Roman lose consciousness.

“’m gonna slow y’ down.” Roman’s voice is quiet, and it takes Logan a moment to decipher what he said given the way the words run together.

Logan crouches down and takes Roman’s arm, wrapping it around his shoulders and bracing one hand against Roman’s armored chestplate. “Think you can stand up?”

“Not lis’ning.”

“Answer the question, Roman.”

Roman swallows. Shudders. His arm tightens around his waist. “Yeah.”

“Three. Two. One. Up.” Logan stands, bracing most of Roman’s weight into his side. Roman nearly pitches into the floor, but he manages to get his legs underneath him and though Logan can feel him shaking with the exertion of effort, Roman is standing.

Progress.

“I’ll wait to unlock the door until you guys are right in front of it,” Sloane says and if there’s a bit of strain to his voice—if he casts a long glance at Corbin—well, Logan doesn’t say anything about it.

“Logan,” Roman says. “Lemme… lemme st…” Roman spasms, and nearly pitches right out of Logan’s grip. His hand on Roman’s chest is the only thing that keeps Roman from tumbling to the floor.

Logan goes to take a step with him—he can see black bleeding up through Roman’s neck like spilled ink and it tightens something in his chest—but Roman doesn’t move. Logan gives Roman a sharp look, opens his mouth to explain that they didn’t have time to waste, but there’s something fiery and bold beneath the haze of pain and poison that clouds his gaze.

“’m not _worth_ —”

“It’s not your decision!” Logan cuts him off sharply. Furious. His gut twists against what he knows was the rest of Roman’s sentence. Roman releases a breath that would sound annoyed if there wasn’t a bit of a hitch to it.

“Doors opening in three. Two. One.”

Corbin and Valerie duck out first, and it’s a mess of dust and wind as Foster’s engine roars overhead, touching down as close as it reasonably can. Logan hears the reverberating pops of phaser fire exchanged somewhere in the cloud of dust. Streaks of green light criss-crossing in the sand-clogged cloud around them. Corbin yells for them to go. Elliot fires off a few shots of their own, sticking close to the two of them to fill in the gaps of phaser coverage left between Corbin and Valerie.

They run.

Or, as best as they can manage. It’s barely a loose jog, really, with Logan having to support most of Roman’s weight. But Roman manages to put one foot in front of the other and from his strangled breathing and how hard he’s shaking, Logan knows it’s about all Roman can manage to do.

Logan estimates that the distance between the pod and Foster is about a hundred or so meters. At the rate they’re moving, it should take them about twenty seconds to reach the docking ramp that Virgil lowers as soon as they touch down. Maybe less than that, if they can push the pace a bit more.

It takes ten seconds before Logan feels bright heat rip through his upper right bicep. Warm liquid spills down his arm.

“Captain!” Elliot yells, alarmed, over the chaos.

“I’m fine,” Logan grits out. “Go! Go!”

Patton meets them on the docking ramp, his eyes wide, and takes Roman’s other side to help Logan get him the rest of the way up. Elliot fires their phaser twice more as the ramp closes before ripping their comm unit off and calling into it.

“Virgil, punch it. We’re gonna have tails.”

“ _Fuck. Everyone accounted for?”_

Logan grabs Roman’s comm. “Affirmative. Get us out of here.” Logan braces himself, and Roman, for the shift as Virgil lifts them off and takes off.

Roman sways.

Patton reaches for his wound. “Ro—”

The navigations officer collapses. Logan grunts as he and Patton both catch him before he crumples entirely, the effort tearing at the wound in Logan’s arm. Bright, hot pain ripples down his arm and up through his shoulder. Logan clenches his teeth against the sharp cry that tries to tear up his throat.

“Roman!” Elliot steps forward, but Logan holds up a hand, trying to get his breathing back under control from the fresh wave of pain.

“No, Elliot. Pilot with Virgil.”

“But I want to help!”

His arm is throbbing and Logan glances down at it, noting with a certain level of detachment that it just looks like a normal graze. No sign of toxin damage. “Help _Virgil_ ,” Logan tells them firmly, leveling a steady gaze that leaves no room for argument.

Elliot’s expression darkens before they turn and head towards the cockpit.

“I gotta get Roman to med bay,” Patton says quietly. “And get you patched up too.”

“I’m fine,” Logan says, helping Patton hoist Roman up from his half-collapsed state on the floor. “Just a graze.”

“But still.”

“It’ll heal, Patton.”

“ _Logan_.”

Logan’s jaw snaps shut. He gives a single, stiff nod in return.

…

The next several minutes are frantic.

Patton and Logan carry Roman to the medical bay and Patton immediately pries Roman’s suit off him to get a closer look. It’s a flurry of movement as he hooks Roman up to various machines to read off information about his vitals, extracting some of the toxin from his system so Patton can run different tests on it separate from Roman’s body, all of which is made more challenging by the frequent shift in g-force as Virgil and Elliot try to lose the ships that had followed them off Vannaheim.

Logan is still on autopilot. He doesn’t stop moving. Logan helps Patton as much as he can, and it’s not until Patton is very gently helping Logan into chair to bandage his wounded arm after Roman has been fully equipped that Logan realizes the warm liquid that he’d felt down his arm was his own blood. Logan stares at Roman on the gatch bed with numb detachment and lets Patton clean and wrap the wound in his arm. It’s while Patton is tying the knot on the bandage wrapped around Logan’s bicep that Virgil clicks on over the intercom.

“ _I think we’ve shaken the last of them. Status update on Princey?”_

Logan and Patton exchange a glance. Patton offers a sad smile and slight lift to his shoulders. Logan stands from the chair and walks to the intercom on the wall. He presses the button, waiting for the click before he speaks.

“No change. Did we take any damage?”

It’s Remy’s voice that answers him. “ _She’ll hold together, but Foster’s warp drive is out of commission until we can dock and I get some parts. What the hell was that all about?”_

Logan swallows and leans his head against the wall for a moment. A damaged warp drive meant that getting to the next planet would take a bit longer than originally planned. He glances over at Patton, whose lips press into a grim line. Logan swallows before he answers over the intercom. “It appears that some prior work I did on that planet in an effort of sustainability warranted a minority of individuals harboring some… hostility.”

Behind him, Patton is peering at the monitors with Roman’s vitals. “Seems like more than just _some_ hostility.”

“ _And we’re sure Wright is gonna be fine down there?”_ Virgil asks.

“Reasonably,” Logan replies. “Their hostility was directed predominantly at me.”

“ _And yet Roman—oh, wait. Hey, Cap, you might wanna come up here. We’ve got a message inbound from Vannaheim.”_

Logan sighs. “I’ll be right there.”

Logan isn’t sure what to expect. He can’t fairly say that he is _surprised_. It made sense that they would attempt contact, especially given that they had successfully evaded their trail. And expecting the message to wait certainly wouldn’t have made sense—they’d be out of signal range within a few minutes. Logan considers, briefly, letting the message go unanswered. But there couldn’t be any harm in _talking_ , right? Perhaps Logan could even appease them enough to quell some of the hostile action that could— _had, did_ —put innocent people in harm’s way.

His arm throbs. Logan looks over his shoulder at Roman, prone on the gatch bed. Pale, except for the side that got hit being a smattering of mottled green and black. The black bleeds in curling tendrils across his chest, up his shoulder, his neck.

Patton catches him staring and gives him another one of those sad smiles. “I’m doing what I can for him, Captain.”

Logan swallows and nods. He squeezes Patton’s shoulder on his way out.

He tries very hard to not look at the hole through the wall that Roman had blasted earlier today. Instead, he focuses on the weight of his measured, calculated footsteps against the grated scaffolding. The very faint and yet oddly familiar, comforting scent of iron that lingered on the inside of the ship despite Patton’s best attempts to fix it. He counts in his head how many steps it takes from the door of the med bay to the cockpit.

The answer is eighteen.

The door swishes open and Virgil cranes his neck around. Elliot doesn’t even show signs of having heard the door opened at all.

“Ready, Captain?” Virgil asks, his finger poised over one of the buttons in front of him.

Logan steadies a hand on the back of Virgil’s chair and nods. “Yes.”

The screen in front of them blips on and Logan stares in surprise as Corbin, Sloane, and Valerie’s faces fill the frame. “ _Hey, they made it!”_ Sloane says brightly. Logan can still feel tension pulling his shoulders taught.

“ _Barely_ ,” Elliot says, so quietly Logan almost doesn’t hear it. Logan sees Virgil glance at them, his brow furrowing.

“ _How’s Roman doing?_ ” Valerie asks.

“We’re working on it,” Logan says.

“You mean _Patton’s_ working on it,” Elliot cuts in.

“Yes,” Logan acquiesces. “I do mean that. Our ship’s medic, Patton Hart, is doing what he can. How are things there?”

“ _Our earlier assumptions proved accurate_ ,” Corbin replies with a shrug. “ _They followed you. The ones that didn’t were angry, but hostility tapered off once they realized they were outnumbered and that you were gone_.”

“I apologize for bringing you under some fire. That wasn’t my intention.”

“ _It’s not like you could’ve known_ ,” Sloane says with a dismissal wave.

“We’re about to lose signal,” Virgil says quietly.

“ _Hey, keep us updated about Roman, will you?”_ Corbin asks.

Sloane and Valerie both nod. “ _We’re just as worried about him as you are!”_

Elliot mutters something under their breath that Logan doesn’t quite catch, but from the suddenly furious look Virgil shoots them, perhaps it was better that he didn’t. Logan assures them that they will let them know as soon as there’s any change to report. Virgil cuts the feed and flexes his grip around the ship’s controls.

“What the _hell_ was that?” Virgil demands suddenly. For a moment, Logan frowns in confusion before he realizes that the question was meant for Elliot and not himself.

“Forget it,” Elliot replies with a quick glance to Logan.

“Bullshit,” Virgil shoots back. His grip on the controls look too tight to be comfortable. “You’re not good with confrontation. Fine. But you don’t get to sit there and make passive-aggressive jabs at our _captain_ after the shit-show we just dealt with. One that _he_ got _you_ out of, I might add. What’s wrong with you?”

“Okay—” Logan says, placatingly, but Elliot interrupts him.

“What’s wrong with _me?_ ” they demand, waving a hand towards Logan. “What’s wrong with _him_? He doesn’t seem phased in the slightest! Roman was _shot_ trying to _protect_ him and he just acted like he didn’t _care_ —”

“Because that’s his fucking job!” Virgil turns a glowering look onto Elliot.

“Virgil,” Logan tries, bewildered at the argument, but they both seem to have forgotten that Logan is even there.

Virgil continues, tearing his gaze back to the stars stretching in front of them. “He’s the Captain, Elliot. It’s his job to make sure shit gets done, and that is _especially_ true when one of us gets hurt. Logan doesn’t fall apart during a crisis but don’t you _dare_ suggest that means he doesn’t _fucking care_.”

Elliot is silent. Logan doesn’t know what—if anything—he should say. Virgil heaves a sigh and rakes a hand through his long bangs. “I mean, shit. Look, I know today has been a lot. The past two hours have been a _lot_. And you haven’t been with us very long. But if you don’t know anything about our Captain, know this: Logan speaks how he cares in his actions. All you have to do is pay attention.”

Logan blinks. He forgot sometimes how closely Virgil watched other people, including himself. He’d noticed it in the beginning when Virgil had first joined, but Virgil had mostly dismissed it and said it was an “anxiety thing”. Logan didn’t know that he believed that, but over time, Virgil’s steady, watchful gaze had become less unsettling and more comforting. Until Logan forgot entirely just how much Virgil paid attention to the people around him.

Elliot sighs. They don’t look up, but Logan hears their words regardless. “I’m sorry, Captain. I was… unfair.”

“It’s understandable,” Logan replies, surprised at being suddenly addressed. His mind is still reeling. Too full of information that is racing through his mind to fully process the argument that just ensued. “Take a breath, Elliot. Get some rest.”

“I…” Elliot looks like they want to argue, but they seem to change their mind. They stand up and look to Virgil. “Are… you good?”

Virgil glances at them, and something softens in his expression. “Yeah, kid. I’m good here.”

Elliot nods absently, then disappears through the cockpit doors. Virgil glances over his shoulder at Logan. “You should get some rest too, Captain.”

“I’m fine.”

Virgil sighs. He doesn’t press him.

…

Days go by. Patton manages to get Roman to stable vitals and Logan thinks he can hear the collective sigh of relief across the ship when the announcement comes over the staticky intercom. But Roman doesn’t wake up, and Patton tells them that he isn’t sure when—or _if_ —it’ll happen. Logan spends most of these days in the med bay, doing what he can with his scientific knowledge to assist Patton’s tests on the toxin. Kai joins them for short periods of time, putting his knowledge of weapons and tech to some use in the long hours.

They manage to come up with an antidote somewhere around what would be a little past two in the morning Earth-time of the second day. It cleanses Roman’s system of the poison, but damage had been done. It was difficult to ascertain exactly how much.

Logan doesn’t sleep much. He thinks Patton notices, but whenever the doctor tries to bring it up, Logan shrugs him off. His usually rigid circadian schedule had been disrupted by bad dreams that echo with Sloane’s pale face and Elliot’s shaking hands and Roman’s strained words. The last words he’d gotten out. _I’m not worth—_ and every time, Logan wakes up before Roman can finish the thought. So Logan gets enough sleep to function, and he spends the rest of his time in the med bay and around the ship making himself useful.

All the crew find time to stop in on occasion as the days press forward. Virgil and Elliot take shifts. Picani makes sure that Patton and Logan are eating, and sometimes sits and talks to Roman’s unconscious form. Patton does that too—talk to him. Whenever he gives Logan an update with a new chart read out, he speaks as if Roman can hear him.

When Logan eventually asks him about it—if he thinks Roman can hear them—Patton lifts a shoulder and replies, “I don’t know. I hope so. And it helps me to talk to him anyway, y’know?”

Logan tries it when Patton goes to bed that night. He sits in the chair that Remy had grabbed and set beside Roman earlier that day and listens to the way the silence of the ship at this hour seems to echo against the old metal walls and bracing. Foster had been quieter in general in the past several days. Less laughter. Less teasing. Less… vibrant.

“That’s your fault, you know,” Logan says quietly, looking at Roman. “As much as I always complain about your insufferable noise level, I’ll admit I had grown… accustomed to it.”

Roman’s face is still startlingly pale, but it had lost the sickly sheen of sweat. He breathes evenly. Regularly. Logan listens to it for a moment, grateful that it at least wasn’t the shaking, shallow wheezes it had been on Vannaheim. The black-and-green stain on Roman’s skin had mostly faded. He’d have a scar, Patton said, on his waist where the initial hit happened. But the rest of it should go back to normal in a day or two.

“Now the quiet just seems…” Logan sighs. He listens again as the ship groans. “It seems heavy. Though you’d probably mock me for the use of the chremamorphism. Ordinarily, I’d qualify it with literal or figurative, as I know that silence cannot carry a physical weight, but…” Logan breaks off. It _feels_ like a literal weight, hanging over the ship like a fog and darkening the iron walls. Weighing on the shoulders of those who move within the space.

Logan sighs. Scrubs a hand across his eyes under his glasses with exhaustion. “There’s something that has been bothering me, Roman. Something that I need to say to you.”

Logan leans forward. Bows his head. “You tried to tell me that you weren’t worth the risk of getting you to safety. Which is, honestly, _bullshit_. I don’t leave my people behind, Roman. You, of all people, should know that. And you… you shouldn’t have taken that shot. That was meant for _me_.”

Logan wonders, now that he’s said it aloud, if the weight on his shoulders from the silence is really the weight of his own guilt. Poised over his head like a pendulum on the verge of snapping.

Bearing Roman’s weight on Vannaheim had not felt this heavy. Logan realizes suddenly that his hands are shaking. He clasps them together in front of him between his knees.

“I’m the Captain,” Logan says. “It’s my job to keep you all safe, and I let you down. That’s on me. And… I am sorry, Roman. I am sorry for my shortcomings as a leader and as a friend. Because if you felt unworthy of being saved, I’m afraid I have failed in both responsibilities.”

A voice from the door to the med bay startles Logan. “It isn’t your fault, L.”

Logan looks over his shoulder towards the sound and finds Virgil leaning against the entry way. Logan blinks in surprise. He hadn’t even heard the doors open. Virgil just watches him with a quiet, unwavering gaze, even if there’s something a little softer in his eyes than Logan is used to seeing.

“Virgil,” Logan greets, pushing his glasses further up his nose and standing. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

Virgil shrugs a shoulder, glancing to Roman. “Couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d check in on Princey.” He pauses, his gaze flickering back to Logan. “And you, too.”

“I’m fine.”

“He doesn’t blame you for what happened,” Virgil says, stepping further into the medical bay and letting the doors swish shut behind him. He’s got his hands shoved into the pockets of his purple plaid-patched hoodie.

Logan shakes his head. “But _I_ do. I should have been more vigilant.”

“Weren’t you the one who taught me that dealing with ‘I should have’ is a dangerous and unproductive thought pattern?”

Logan hesitates. He can’t argue with that. He remembers the conversation from years ago. “Roman shouldn’t have been put into that situation.”

“He did it to protect you.”

“I didn’t ask him to do that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“But—”

“Logan,” Virgil cuts in, tossing his hands up in exasperation, “All of us? On this ship? We’re a family. You didn’t ask for that, but it happened. You are not the only one who cares about other people on this ship.”

“I know that.”

“Then know that any one of us would do what Roman would do if meant protecting you. We look out for _each other_.” Behind him, the door swishes open again but Virgil doesn’t even turn around. “We protect one another. All of us. You protect us, we protect you. That’s how this shit works.”

Patton steps into the med bay in a cat onesie. His pajamas. He pads quietly into the room, tugging the hood off his head. “Virgil’s right, Cap. We’re a family here. Like it or lump it.”

“And while this may be _your_ ship,” Virgil says as Patton crosses to the monitors on the wall. “We don’t plan to go anywhere any time soon. You’re stuck with us.”

Despite himself, Logan cracks a faint smile.

“Yeah,” croaks a voice from the gatch bed that makes Logan whirl around. “Couldn’t get rid of us if ya tried, Cap.”

Roman’s eyes are open and glinting with something that Logan can’t quite decipher in the dark. Amusement, but something softer too. Patton gasps and rushes over, helping Roman sit up a bit more and grabbing the glass of water with a straw that he’d been refreshing each day for this very event. Roman takes a grateful sip and leans his head against Patton in silent gratitude. Patton smooths his hair with a gentle pat before helping Roman lean back in the bed again.

“How do you feel?” Virgil asks.

“Like I was shot.”

Virgil snorts.

Patton asks him a series of questions that are a bit more pointed— _“Any dizziness, Roman? Do you know who I am? Do you know where you are? Are you feeling nauseous?”_ —and adjusts some of the machines to accommodate for an awake patient. Roman is a bit slow with his answers, and a bit slower still for the orienting ones, but he answers them accurately and cracks a few jokes in the meantime, and Logan just watches, feeling some of the tightness in his chest ease a bit.

When Patton makes a joke and the ship hears Roman’s laughter for the first time in almost a week, Logan thinks maybe he’ll finally be able to sleep through the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Would love you know your thoughts! <3


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